Yasunga (Earth-616)
/ , Part I: Red Shadows and Black Kraken!}} (see notes) | CurrentAlias = | Aliases = Yaranga, Yasanga, Yarunga, )}} possibly Lasunga (typos, see notes) | Identity = No Dual | Affiliation = Formerly Vacharn (as a walking dead); Conan's crews on the Winged Dragon, the Red Lion and the ''Venturer''; Captain Alvaro's crew aboard the Falcon of Zingara ( ); slave on Demetrio's Venturer; Zula's party (with Ajonga, Laranga and others); Imbalayo's (as a spy), Bêlit's aboard the Tigress | Relatives = | Universe = Earth-616 | BaseOfOperations = Isle of Na'at; formerly Western Ocean aboard the Winged Dragon, the ''Venturer'' and the Tigress; Tortage, Barachan Isles; Asgalun, Shem; Southern Isles | Gender = Male | Height = | Weight = | Eyes = | Hair = Black | UnusualFeatures = | Citizenship = Southern Isles, Baracha | MaritalStatus = Single | Occupation = Pirate, sailor, adventurer, warrior aboard the Winged Dragon (formerly aboard the ''Red Lion'' and the Tigress); formerly navigator aboard the Falcon of Zingara; galley slave aboard the ''Venturer'', spy among Imbalayo's | Education = | Origin = Human resurrected as a walking dead | PlaceOfBirth = Southern Isles | PlaceOfDeath = Western Ocean (death) Isle of Na'at (body's destruction) | Creators = Robert E. Howard; Roy Thomas; Gil Kane | First = Savage Sword of Conan #8 | First2 = | Death = Conan the Savage #10 | Overview = Yasunga was one of Bêlit's Black Corsairs, and battled alongside Conan of Cimmeria, the barbarian warrior and mate of Bêlit. Unlike most Black Corsairs, Yasunga had a life full in change: He acted as a spy among Kushite mercenaries for Bêlit and was part of her victory upon the Stygians in Asgalun, joined Zula the Zamballah with a few of his fellow corsairs to travel north. He, Ajonga and Laranga later became slaves aboard an Argossean galley until, two decades after leaving the Black Corsairs, they revolted under Conan's leadership, and accompanied him in his quest to regain his throne. Yasunga then became a Barachan buccaneer and a navigator aboard the Falcon of Zingara of Captain Alvaro, until he joined Conan in his quest to find the lands across the Western Ocean, / , Part I: Red Shadows and Black Kraken!}} four decades after their first encounter. He finally met his demise on that trip during a tempest, while saving a young seaman from his doom. | HistoryText = Origin and early years Yasunga was from the Southern Isles, and was one of the Black Corsairs, dark-skinned buccaneers led by the pirate queen Bêlit, an alleged Goddess daughter of Derketa and captain of the Tigress, ravaging the coasts of Kush and other targets to the North. Black Corsairs and Conan Soon after Conan joined the crew, M'Gora and Yasunga wrestled with him in order to prove that at last two of the Corsairs could best the Cimmerian (while Conan wished to make them learn a lesson on fighting. Conan nevertheless managed to defeat the pair. Dissipating their feelings of shame, Conan then proceeded to teach them about leverage and team-fighting. As Conan was going to brawl against three Corsairs (M'Gora, Laranga and Ajonga, they were interrupted by Bêlit who had grew tired of the brawling. As Conan criticized her, Bêlit decided to have him and she exercise by crossing swords, Yasunga consequently brought Conan his blade. Possibly as Lasunga, he was among the Black Corsairs infiltrating Messantia in order for Bêlit to sell her loot to the merchant Publio, and who fought thieves working for Publio's rivals. Later, during the boarding of a Shemite ship, Yasunga was assigned to tend to the sick N'yaga during the fray. ... Asgalun While Conan and Bêlit were off to Stygia, sub-chief M'Gora took half a dozen corsairs with him, including Yasunga, and went northwards, into Shem and towards Asgalun to obtain information to share with Bêlit at her return for her to avenge herself from her uncle King Nim-Karrak. On the road to Asgalun and without a way to enter the city (as blacks weren't usually welcome), they encountered Imbalayo and his Kushite Cavalry who offered them the choice between killing them or joining him. The Corsairs joined, and learned that Imabalayo's mercenaries were employed by Stygia to enforce their rule in Asgalun as they had too few men to assign there. The Corsairs soon gathered information, including the spread of the Stygian influence, the Hyrkanian guards of Nim-Karrak, the two possible candidates to succession: Uriaz, uninterested by the crown, and Akhîrom marching with troops of King Sumuabi of Anakia. Eventually M'Gora bid his companions to make fake headdresses to look like the Kushites, and to wait in shadows near the gate every third noon, for his return. He then returned to the Tigress with the gathered information, and came back with Conan, Bêlit and their new ally Zula the Zamballah. At the gates of Asgalun, the Stygians guards refused to let them enter, until Yasunga appeared in guise of Kushites, convincing the guards. Yasunga and the others then hid their fake headdresses and returned to the Kushite barracks. In the following days, M'Gora, Zula and the Black Corsairs spread the words to Shemites, Kushites and Hyrkanians of the return of the daughter of Atrahasis, Bêlit. Soon, the Stygians moved to annex the province, having Nim-Karrak on the run and the next potential successor Uriaz to be executed, causing unrest among the Shemites. Conan took the place of the executioner and at the last moment killed the Stygian prince Khauman. Then, Bêlit revealed herself and pledge Shemite and Hyrkanian to unite against Stygian and Kushite. The Shemites' momentum almost died out, until M'Gora, Yasunga and Laranga, still among the Kushites, threw spears at the Hyrkanians who thought to be targeted on the Stygians' orders, and causing the Hyrkanians to rally to the Shemites. In the ensuing moments, Nim-Karrak died, while Imbalayo changed side, turning against his Stygian allies and causing their surrender. Bêlit soon rejected the crown, forced it upon her cousin Uriaz to continue her life of piracy and the group fled the city, where all factions (save for the defeated Stygians) took arms instants later against each others to support Uriaz or Akhîrom. Adventuring with Zula After their fleeing of Asgalun, a few of the Corsairs, including Yasunga, Ajonga and Lasanga decided to follow Zula and go north. Yasunga was asked by his fellows to speak on their behalf to Bêlit, to ask her if she understood their wish to go with the Zamballah. Bêlit proved to be supportive, and even said a prayer to them for her alleged mother the Death-Goddess to stay her hand from them and grant them long lives. After some time, long before three after leaving the Tigress' crew, Zula and the former Black Corsairs eventually went different ways. Aboard the Venturer Two decades after Amra (Conan)'s disappearance (in the fourth year of Conan's rule of Aquilonia), Ajonga, Laranga and Yasunga had somehow became galley slaves on the ''Venturer'' (among other blacks, mostly Kushites but also some from the Southern Isles) whose captain was the Argossean Demetrio. When the ship was in Messantia, capital of Argos, Demetrio brought Conan aboard. The Argossean and the Cimmerian soon came to hands and swords. Conan rallied his former companions by recalling them of him and managed to hurl Demetrio among the black slaves who soon took the keys to free themselves. Galvanized by the return of Amra, the corsairs and Kushites turned against the Argosseans. Once the Argosseans slaughtered, Conan rallied the former slaves as free men who accepted him as their leader. He had them headed southwards, along the Shemite coastal ports and city-states, to Stygia where Conan believed the Heart of Ahriman to be. They stopped at Khemi where the River Styx joins with the sea. There, Conan asked Yasunga and Loranga to capture a Stygian and carry him back and (explicitly) unharmed, as they hated the Stygians for what they had done to their people. The pair found and abducted a fisherman who was brought back aboard the Venturer and interrogated by Conan. Upon learning that the Stygian galley he was pursuing carried the priest Thutothmes who had for years sought the power to overthrow Thoth-Amon, Conan deduced Thutothmes was the thief of the Heart of Ahriman. He decided to go after the priest, leaving the Corsairs in charge of the prisoner, asking Ajonga to keep him safe. After a series of encounters in Khemi, Conan returned to the Venturer, had the Stygian fisherman rewarded with gold and put ashore, and the crew set to Zingara. Yasunga and his fellow Corsairs weren't seen in the following and conclusion of the conflict opposing Conan to the conspirators. Captain Alvaro's Falcon of Zingara He became a Barachan buccaneer, and a navigator aboard the Falcon of Zingara of Captain Alvaro. / , Part I: Red Shadows and Black Kraken!}} Road to Mayapan and death Four decades after he first sailed with Conan, he was present when the barbarian came to Tortage to recruit a crew and sail westward across the Western Ocean. Yasunga answered the call but Captain Alvaro refused to let him go and provoked Conan, escalating in a duel in which Alvaro was slain. / , Part I: Red Shadows and Black Kraken!}} Yasunga consequently joined Conan and Sigurd of Vanaheim, alongside with Goram Singh from Vendhya, the head archer Yakov and Milo, the Messantian aboard the Red Lion. After their encounter with a Black Kraken (which was emblem of the old Witch-Kings of Atlantis), / , Part I: Red Shadows and Black Kraken!}} the Red Lion encountered a strange ship with the Black Kraken as emblem and manned by no man but one sorcerer. Conan, Yasunga and many boarded the ship, only to be confronted to the sorcerer armored and, an instant later, surrounded by many identical copies of himself. The whole disappeared when Conan slew the original. ... When Yakov and Milo demanded that the ship turn tail and head back for Argos but were denied by Conan, Yakov tried to skewer him with an arrow. While Conan neutralized Yajov, Yasunga stopped Milo from backstabbing him. In the ensuing storm, Yasunga managed to recover a young seaman nearly washed overboard, only to be lost in the storm. Conan tried to rescue him as well but was denied by Sigurd of Vanaheim who feared to lost another live. The Winged Dragon was swept by the storm for two more days, then brought to the Isle of Na'at by the River of Night, a terrible ocean stream which surges forever toward the place of the sun's setting. There, the ship broke on the reefs and all men aboard were killed save for Conan. The whole crew's bodies, save for Sigurd but including Yasunga's, were then resurrected by the necromancer Vacharn as servants for him and his sons Wokal and Uldulla. Conspiring against their father, the two sons solicited Conan's help to slay him. In the ensuing confrontation, Vacharn, his demon-familiar Esrit, Wokal and Uldulla were killed. Conan consequently assumed control of the animated bodies, had the sorcerers' and the demon's bodies to be burned on a funeral pyre, then ordered Dalili (Vacharn's wife, killed and resurrected by him to keep her youth), Sigurd and Yasunga to walk into the fire as well. | Personality = | Powers = | Abilities = | Strength = | Weaknesses = | Equipment = | Transportation = The Winged Dragon; formerly the ''Red Lion'', the Falcon of Zingara, the ''Venturer'', the Tigress | Weapons = | Notes = * Yasunga and Loranga hated the Stygians for what they had done to their people. Name * Yasunga's name was often written with typos: He is called "Yaranga", "Yasanga" and "Yarunga". In the reprint of (where he is named both Yasunga and Yarunga) in , "Yarunga" is corrected in "Yasunga", confirming his name. * In , a Black Corsair named "Lasunga" is depicted. It is unclear whether it is a character on his own, or (more likely) a typo on Laranga or Yasunga. | Trivia = | Marvel = | Wikipedia = | Links = }} Category:Formerly Deceased